Literature

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Raconteur writers Te Radar and Ruth Spencer walk us through their new book—a hilarious exploration of rural life in Aotearoa through its artefacts, gadgets, and ephemera. Think Red Band gumboots, milk tankers, meat safes, mangles and ride-on mowers; Godfrey Bowen’s pink Long Johns, the Waimate White Horse, wartime tanks made...

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Anne Tiernan is the internationally bestselling author of The Good Mistress, and The Last Days of Joy. In The Good Mistress, Tiernan explores what it means to be a “good” woman as she weaves the lives of Erica, Juliet and Maeve into an unputdownable, charming and at times wickedly funny...

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Rocco, The Wednesday Wizard, The Juniper Game, Winter of Fire, Tanith… Tauranga resident Sherryl Jordan wrote some of Aotearoa’s most beloved novels for children and young adults.  Join Jordan fans Claire Mabey, Naomi Arnold and Debbie McCauley for a conversation about Jordan’s memoir, Descending Fire, and Jordan’s novels and their...

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Damien Wilkins’ novel about ageing couple Mary and Pete won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, in the Ockham Book Awards. The judges were unanimous in their praise for the depth and beauty of Wilkins’ prose and the fact that this is a story about older people—something we don’t...

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Award-winning journalist Naomi Arnold’s account of spending nearly nine months walking the length of New Zealand on Te Araroa is riveting, at times heart-stopping and many times joyful. In this magnificent memoir, Arnold traverses mountains, rivers, cities and plains from summer to spring; walks through days of thick mud, blazing...

Presented by: Tauranga Arts Festival Catherine Chidgey’s latest novel, The Book of Guilt, is the page-turning tale of three identical brothers and the women who look after them, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night.  Chidgey talks to Sandra Simpson about the inspirations behind this magnificent and sinister story: why she chose to set it...